


the longest afternoon

by ingeneva



Category: Little Mix (Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingeneva/pseuds/ingeneva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, Leigh-Anne,” Perrie says when Leigh-Anne drifts back into the dressing room. When Leigh-Anne looks up from her phone, Perrie is grinning at her in the mirror. It takes Leigh-Anne about a second to notice something’s off and another second to get suspicious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the longest afternoon

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for any typos. Title from 'Little Numbers' by Boy.

“Hey, Leigh-Anne,” Perrie says when Leigh-Anne drifts back into the dressing room. When Leigh-Anne looks up from her phone, Perrie is grinning at her in the mirror. It takes Leigh-Anne about a second to notice something’s off and another second to get suspicious.

“What?” she asks, lowering her phone.

“What what?” Perrie asks, wrinkling her nose for a moment. “I can’t say hello?”

“Hi,” Leigh-Anne says slowly.

Perrie immediately grins again. “Hello,” she says. “How are you?”

“I’m exactly the same as I was five minutes ago,” Leigh-Anne replies. She looks at Perrie for a few more moments. Perrie blinks, weighted by her heavy false lashes; the corner of her mouth threatens to flare out even further. Leigh-Anne squints a bit. “Why?”

“No reason,” Perrie says, shrugging, but she keeps watching Leigh-Anne’s reflection as Leigh-Anne cautiously settles down on the couch. “I’m kind of starvin’, though. I haven’t eaten in ages.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything to eat, would you?” Perrie asks. Her voice goes a little sharp at the end, and Leigh-Anne feels her heart jump a little bit.

“No,” she says.

Perrie blinks at her a little more, her mouth pinched to keep from smiling. She’s terrible at it, though, and she lets out a snort of a laugh before she can finish asking, “Are you sure?” and Leigh-Anne jumps up to make sure she doesn’t suddenly have pudding or something equally gross on her ass.

“Oh no,” she says, pulling at her jeans. They’re clean, but all it makes it her wonder is if they’ve gotten better at hiding it from her. “What did you do? Perrie—”

“It wasn’t me!” Perrie says, putting up her hands in front of her face. “I promise, I was only an innocent bystander—”

“I hate all of you—”

“It’s just a bit of sandwich,” Perrie tells her, edging toward the door with her hands still up. “I made them promise not to put any condiments on it, because I’m thoughtful, you know, didn’t want to ruin your trainers—”

“What,” Leigh-Anne says, her voice a bit shrill. She reaches for her trainers, sat where she toed them off, and sees a slice of tomato nestled in a bed of lettuce and salami. Perrie’s saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—” but she’s still laughing, and by the time Leigh-Anne thinks to reach for her, she’s dashing out of the room.

“You did this, didn’t you?” Leigh-Anne asks, rushing to follow her. She doesn’t see Perrie in the hall, but she can hear where her giggles are coming from. “Oh, come on, I haven’t played a prank in weeks—”

“You put salt in my tea!”

“It was just a little bit,” Leigh-Anne says, and then Perrie says, “Aha! And you said it wasn’t you—”

She follows Perrie’s voice until she has her cornered in a long stretch of hallway with an emergency exit. Perrie looks back and forth between the door and the opening Leigh-Anne’s blocking before she flops down on the cold, concrete floor. “I surrender,” she says, exhaling grandly. “Tell my mum I loved her.”

“You’re the worst,” Leigh-Anne tells her, shuffling closer to Perrie’s limp body and kicking her ankle. “My shoes are going to smell like salami for _weeks_ —”

Perrie weakly kicks her back. “Salami smells delicious.”

“That’s not the point,” Leigh-Anne says.

“Then what was the point?”

Perrie looks up at Leigh-Anne, her hair mussed up and one of her eyelashes dangling precariously, and Leigh-Anne fights the urge to smile. “The point is,” she says, “you’re a jerk.”

“I’m a sorry one,” Perrie tells her. She pulls the corners of her mouth down and wrinkles her nose a bit, and Leigh-Anne can’t bite down on her smile quickly enough. Perrie’s returning grin looks a little triumphant. “Will you forgive me?”

“No.”

“Please?” Perrie reaches out a little and tickles the back of Leigh-Anne’s bare knee, because it tickles and she knows Leigh-Anne hates it. Leigh-Anne tries to snatch her hand, but Perrie gets hers instead. She pulls, and Leigh-Anne tells herself she’s too tired to fight back as she yields to it, folding down toward the floor. “Forgive me.”

“No,” Leigh-Anne mumbles, as Perrie wraps her arms around her waist.

“Forgive me,” Perrie sings, “forgive me, forgive me-ology—”

“Perrie—”

“I won’t give up,” she says, “never gonna give you up—”

“Oh my god, shut _up_.”

Perrie laughs a little, right in Leigh-Anne’s ear, and then she digs her fingers into Leigh-Anne’s sides. Leigh-Anne twitches, but she can’t shrink back before Perrie is trying to properly tickle her. “I’m sorry for making your shoes smelly,” Perrie says. “Are you sorry for putting salt in my tea?”

“It was just a bit of salt,” Leigh-Anne replies; between her laughs and her gulps for breath, it takes twice as many syllables as it needs to. Perrie digs her fingers in a little harder. “Fine, yes, okay, I’m sorry—”

“I don’t believe you,” Perrie says, but her fingers go slack.

Leigh-Anne grabs them immediately, pushing her weight forward until Perrie’s hands are pinned over her head. Perrie exhales on impact; Leigh-Anne can feel her breath against her chin. The warmth of it makes her stomach drop, and she jerks her head down a little, shifting back, but Perrie curls her fingers in hers. It’s enough to make her freeze. “Hey,” Perrie says.

It’s barely above a whisper, and Leigh-Anne suddenly feels like she’s made of lead. “Sorry,” she says.

Perrie drops her eyes a bit, asks, “What for?”

Their faces are only a couple inches apart. Leigh-Anne can’t stop holding her breath. “Nothing,” she replies, prying her sweaty palms from Perrie’s, but she doesn’t get far, because Perrie’s shifting up onto her elbow, one of her hands fisting the material of Leigh-Anne’s t-shirt as she pushes their mouths together.

It only lasts for a few seconds. Her mouth is firm and a bit waxy from her lipstick, and Leigh-Anne doesn’t even get a chance to think about kissing her back before Perrie pulls back. She looks at Leigh-Anne, wide-eyed, like Leigh-Anne was the one who did it. Leigh-Anne just stares back at her.

“I thought—” Perrie says.

“What?”

“What you were apologizing for,” Perrie says, making a face. “Were you not going to kiss me?”

Leigh-Anne swallows, says, “I don’t know.” All she can think about is the weight of Perrie’s hand and the smudge of lipstick on her mouth, and when she notices the flutter of Perrie’s eyelashes, she’s leaning forward before she can figure it out.


End file.
